


Octal

by ladysorka



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysorka/pseuds/ladysorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jumper proposals sounded much more interesting than Minesweeper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Octal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the sga_saturday prompt "base".

John opened his eyes and blinked blearily at Rodney. "Why're you up?"

"Early morning meeting with the underlings." Rodney yawned. "Radek and I are trying to break in the newbies before the first 48 hours without sleep crisis."

"Evil."

"And overly masochistic, yes." Rodney groaned and pushed himself out of bed. He looked at John with a weird smile on his face that made John feel oddly warm. "Go back to sleep. You don't need to meet Ronon for your disgusting morning health ritual for another hour yet."

"Mmph." John pulled Rodney's pillow over his head, breathing in Rodney's scent. He left enough space to watch Rodney as he walked across the room, reveling in the fact that he was allowed to look now. The bathroom lights flicked on and John flinched at the bright light before the door swooshed shut.

He rolled onto his back, letting Rodney's pillow fall onto the bed, and closed his eyes. He let the sounds of Rodney's morning routine wash over him. The strange electrical buzzing of the Ancient toilets, water flowing down the wall into the sink basin, Rodney gurgling.

The shower came on and John sighed, giving up on going back to sleep. Once he was awake, he was awake. He thought for a moment about joining Rodney in the shower, but it sounded like Rodney was using all of the shower heads, including the weird spouts in the floor, and John just wasn't into that. There probably wasn't time anyway.

John sat up and stared at the clothes strewn across the floor. He could just leave, stick his head in the bathroom and tell Rodney he'd see him at breakfast. But Rodney was right, he wasn't meeting Ronon for another hour and John would just end up sitting in his quarters doing nothing anyway. The mess didn't even start serving breakfast for another hour and a half. Rodney and Radek were being downright _mean_ to those kids.

John got up and walked over to Rodney's desk, grabbing his tablet. He could at least spend some time productively kicking Rodney's ass at Minesweeper. The password was ridiculously simple - for a guy who supposedly was good with computers, Rodney basically never remembered to change his passwords - and John went to open the file tree to get to the secret time wasting games he knew Rodney hid there. He paused, noticing a file on the desktop named PuddleJumperProp-Bjornsen. Jumper proposals sounded much more interesting than Minesweeper.

He clicked on the file and sat down on the bed to read it. Bjornsen was suggesting a way to improve speeds by augmenting the Ancient tech with some things stolen from Goa'uld sublight craft. John didn't think there was anything the Goa'uld knew that they hadn't already stolen from the Ancients or the Asgard, but it was an interesting theory.

He scrolled down to look at the speed augmentation equations and stared. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and read the equations again. John didn't actually use his master's in aerospace engineering and his math was a little rusty, but he knew that couldn't be right. Was Bjornsen a complete idiot? If this had actually been implemented, it could've gotten them all killed.

John stalked into the bathroom and waved the tablet at the shower. "Have you read this?"

Rodney blinked at him through the stained glass door. "What?"

"This Puddlejumper proposal."

"No? Radek forwarded it to me last night, and I didn't get it a chance to read it before I was distracted." Rodney gave John that weird smile again. "His whole message was a little crying emoticon and he knows I hate it when he does that. He only uses them to annoy me."

"Can I fire him?"

"For using emoticons?"

John waved the tablet again. " _Bjornsen_ , Rodney."

Rodney stared at John and turned off the shower. "The IOA's forbidden us from firing anyone until they've been here at least six months after what happened last time. Just how terrible is it?"

"Rodney. He completely forgot to account for the fact that the Ancients worked entirely in base-8."

"Wait, really?" Rodney got out of the shower and grabbed the tablet, looking down at the equations. He started to laugh. "Oh wow, he did."

"This isn't funny!" John crossed his arms. "Do you know what that would've done to the Jumpers?"

"No, no, this is hilarious. He was so convinced that he'd just walked in here cold and discovered something none of us had seen in the past six years. This meeting is going to be fantastic."

John glared at him.

"Oh relax, it's not like we would've ever let him near the Jumpers anyway. I'll let you yell at him if you want to."

John took a deep breath and let it out again. "Thanks, but no."

Rodney grinned. "Or you could just come our meeting and glare at him."

John closed his eyes to stop himself from glaring at Rodney again and grabbed the tablet back. He stalked back into the bedroom, set it down carefully on the desk, and picked up his pants.

Rodney followed him and leaned against the wall. He watched John put one leg in his pants. "I love you."

John tripped on his pants and fell on his ass. "Uh."

Rodney smiled weirdly, not at all deterred. "John, you're so angry that Bjornsen is terrible at math that you're trying to put on my pants. I love you."

John looked at the pants tangled around his feet and flushed. "Uh."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "I have no idea how I ever thought you were better at this than me."

"Neither do I."

Rodney waited a moment and then sighed. He walked over and held out his hand. "Need some help?"

John grabbed it and stood up. "I hate you."

"No, you don't."

John nodded. "No, I don't." He kicked off the pants.

"You'd be an idiot if you did, and I don't like idiots." Rodney was decidedly not looking at John.

"Hey." John reached out and cupped Rodney's cheek. Rodney looked at him, and John brushed his lips lightly against Rodney's. He pulled back almost immediately. "I. I love you too." He paused, wondering at it. "I love you."

Rodney smiled at him, and John realized it was tender. "You don't have to sound so surprised about it."

John smiled back and they stared at each other for a moment. "Okay, this is awkward."

Rodney nodded rapidly. "Yes. Yes it is. Want to go have sex in the shower?"

John latched onto it like a lifeline. "God, yes. Wait, don't you have a meeting?"

"Radek can yell at me later." Rodney grabbed John's hand and pulled him back into the bathroom.

"Can we not use the floor spouts? I hate the floor spouts."

"You hate the _floor spouts_? That's it, I don't love you anymore."

John grinned at Rodney's back. He might actually have to thank Bjornsen. The floor spouts came on, tickling John's feet. John glared at Rodney and turned them off again. Or maybe not.


End file.
